The students kept exploring the dungeon, Astelia and Sofia’s group alternating the fights against all sorts of root-infected mechanical creatures. There were a few minor injuries along the way but nothing too extreme. Watching the students’ group cohesion and tactics grow at a fast pace was very satisfying to Sofia. There was, however, one small issue. ‘Clint’, the student from Astelia’s group who had stumbled and put her students in a bad position during their first fight, was starting to look very suspicious.

Stumbling and slowing down everyone’s retreat the first time? Sure. Things happen. Screaming like a frightened chicken because of a leaf touching him and alerting the monsters when Sofia’s group tried to orchestrate a sneak attack? Strange. When he woke up the students during their camping session ‘because he saw something’ as he stood guard, when there was actually nothing, Sofia thought this guy was starting to become annoying.

In the middle of the second day of exploration, the students settled down after backtracking a bit to a safe, explored area to cook and eat. Sofia was sitting at a distance with Astelia.

“I’m telling you, something’s wrong about how he acts. I’m sure now,” Sofia whispered.

Astelia sighed. “I agree. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt because he’s generally a good student, but this is starting to add up to a lot of strange behavior, and it’s always mostly inconveniencing your students. I really don’t get why he’s acting like this.”

“Well, I have my little idea. Four of my five students are in the top fifty of the token rankings, so it’s not hard to see why someone would want them to fail.”

Astelia concurred with Sofia’s deduction, “What I am curious about now is who paid him to do that. Clearly he’s not doing it for himself, he’s not even in the top 100, he has no chance of winning even if your entire class stumbles.”

“Could be anyone. Maybe his high rank classmate?”

“Evan?” Astelia asked in disbelief, “No. He looks a bit shady but I can vouch for his outstanding morals and ethics. He’s the last person I would suspect.”

“Could be a façade, but I’ll trust you on this one. We’re going to have to scrutinize the top of the rankings to see who could be tempted to do something like that… At least he’s not tried to kill them or anything too bad yet, but with how it’s going I’m worrying he might try something bigger during the half-boss we were briefed about.”

Astelia took a second to think. Then she told Sofia of her new plan, “Doing something during the half-boss would expose that he knew about it, if so then that means his backer has insights into the organization of the event and knew about the scouting of this dungeon for our group in particular. That would be someone quite high in the Academy’s hierarchy… I say we wait and stand ready to stop whatever he tries then, if anything. That’s a first step in knowing who is trying to screw with your students’ score. I don’t think he can do anything that we can’t fix, especially if you keep some of the graveyard skeletons on standby under the floor.”

“That’s an idea… What if he’s hiding some kind of pre-loaded cursed item or something like this to use then, though? Surely whoever’s got him to do this crap knew we’d be here, so things might not stop at simply small-scale sabotaging. Letting him play his little games for any longer might become a safety issue for my students.”

Could it be the Empress resurfacing now? She’s one of the people who could be in the know…

But maybe we’re just being a bit too paranoid. He could still be nothing but an awkward and annoyingly unlucky kid…

While Sofia and Astelia were distracted talking to each other about the suspicious kid, the student in question suddenly screamed like a terrorized pig. Amidst the group of snacking students, near Shaily reheating her soup over a fire sprite, Clint was dangling in the air, feet right above the ground, as if held up by the wrist by an invisible person.

Everyone grabbed their weapons, some started channeling skills, Astelia even instantly teleported to his side.

Sofia shouted for everyone to stop and sit back down. She could already see the hem of the priest of Death’s robe reappearing. Slowly his masked, robed form revealed itself from the feet up, he was the one holding the kid up by the wrist.

What did this kid do that the priest had to step in like this?!

Clint tried to free himself. “Let me go! I did nothing wrong!”

This sounds exactly like someone who did something wrong. And it just happens to be you again, huh. Guess we weren’t just being paranoid.

The priest turned his masked head to Astelia, “Teacher Glacier. Let us handle this matter privately with Teacher Vakaria, come,” he told her before teleporting himself and the student to Sofia’s side. Astelia followed and the first thing she did as she reappeared next to them was to tell Clint to shut his trap.

“You can let him go, I have him in my grasp,” she told the priest, who released his grip on Clint. Astelia was doing to him what she had done to Sofia before, his speed was stuck at zero and he couldn’t get away.

Seeing that the kid was about to speak again, Sofia plugged his mouth with a bone gag.

“Can we get an explanation?” Sofia asked the priest.

“The explanation lies in his right hand,” the priest calmly explained, pointing at Clint’s tightly clenched right fist.

“Open your hand,” Sofia ordered. The kid panicked, he looked around and tried to crawl away but he couldn’t. He seemed very unwilling to open his hand. Sofia frowned, she was about to grab the student’s arm, he looked terrified. “Can I?” she asked Astelia.

“Please.”

Sofia nodded and grabbed the kid’s right arm with her dragon-scale claws. The claws piercing through the student’s arm touched his radius bone and she forced his hand open with [Bone Dominus]. He had been holding a tiny opaque flask the size of a fingertip.

The other students were noisy and trying to see what was going on but Pareth was looking over them to stop them from coming closer.

Sofia grabbed the flask. Clint was struggling to free himself from Sofia’s iron grasp and trying to say something, but the bone gag was very effective at shutting him up.

Now let’s see.

Uncorking the small flaks, Sofia looked inside, it contained a small amount of brown powder.

No you didn’t… Pareth! Make sure no one eats anything!

Mr Scribe, verdict?

[Silent Death] : Dangerous refined toxin, this poison is hard to produce even for renowned alchemists. In sufficient doses, causes a swift death by sudden brain and nervous tissue necrosis after an incubation period of four to five hours. Effective on most hot-blooded creatures under level 200.

This much is enough to kill about three level 99s.

Item level : 200. Grade : Precious.

This fucker was next to Shaily!

Sofia showed the description to Astelia whose face darkened as she read. Her expression was scarier now than Sofia had ever seen her. Sofia slowly closed the flask and gently removed the gag in the student’s mouth. With a kind smile she told him, “You better have a very good explanation for us, Clint.”

“I was forc-” Clint started before having a spasm and his words dying in his throat as he started vomiting blood.

Shit!

The priest cast a series of spells in a second, resulting in Clint being still like a statue, as if frozen in time. The blood he was coughing up was no longer flowing, stuck in the air like the rest, encased in strong mana bonds.

“This is serious soul damage,” the priest declared, “Not something we can handle. I will bring him to the High-priest. Do you still have the charm?”

Sofia nodded.

“Good. This should keep you safe enough. Use the catalyst if something else goes wrong, we will heal this one and interrogate him then bring him to the Headmaster. In the meantime, it is best for your students’ mental health if you keep going as if nothing happened.”

“Did he manage to poison anyone?” Sofia asked worriedly.

“No. I had been monitoring this student’s action since yesterday, he only now revealed the flask that was hidden in the inner pocket of his uniform. He had no time to open it,” the priest reassured her. “I will go now, expect to hear more of this when you leave the dungeon.”

Without another word, the priest of Leverle’s church disappeared with Clint.

Thank the lords the priest was here. If he had managed to poison Shaily…

I need to extend my thanks to Leverle and to Death. Can you hear those kinds of prayers, Death? Thank you!

“You look scary, Sofia,” Astelia told her in a tense voice.

“You look even worse, Asty. Your pointy teeth are showing.”

“One of my own students!” she answered, stomping her feet. Putting her hands on her head, the short vampire crouched and sighed. “I need some blood…”

Sofia detached her eyes from Astelia and threw a worried glance at the curious and agitated students at the other side of the hall, still all held back there by an unmoving Pareth staring down at them.

How the fuck can I explain to them what just happened?